Weymouth, United Kingdom, January 2024

After a whirlwind visit to Western Europe to catch up with friends we have made it to England. It has been many, many years since either Chris, or I have been in the UK.

Travelling from Belgium to England was very easy, we have had a few near misses and were not expecting it to have been quite so easy. We took the train to Brussels International Airport, and went straight through passport control and security quickly and efficiently. On arrival at Heathrow, we were both stunned at how easy it was getting through. Back in the day, Heathrow was a nightmare, mega long queues, oodles of questions of your “right to be there”, which infuriated Chris back then, so much so that he was not too keen to be back.  New Zealand is part of the British Commonwealth, we are under the same King. 1000’s of New Zealand soldiers lost while fighting in the World Wars alongside Britain, but still multiple questions of our right to enter. But this time? We didn’t talk to one person! It was all automated. We scanned our own passport, picked up our bags and walked straight out. We looked at each other and thought there must be more…. No, all done!

Heading to our first house sit, Weymouth. Weymouth is on the South Coast of England. A train from Heathrow to Bournemouth then a bus to Weymouth. After a couple of hours, we were there.

We had a fabulous evening getting to know our homeowners and their lovely pets, Bonnie (Cockapoo dog) and Maisie and Polly (jet black cats). We have been so lucky with our house sits, we always have amazing people to spend time with, people we would never have normally met. This is far and away the best part of what we do. The next morning, we send them off on their holiday and settle in.

Weymouth is a lovely town, long sweeping beach with bathing beach boxes and cafes dotted most of the way along. It was a 4 km walk from the house into the centre of town. We did this once then got a bus pass and used the busses every day. We had fantastic weather but there had been a lot of rain, so the ground was soddened, lots of mud and puddles.

We took Bonnie on the coastal pathway walk, towards the Smugglers pub. It was 5.5 km and we thought we would head there for a pub lunch. There was so much mud! The path was impassable in places, we had to climb the fence and walk along the farmers paddocks at times just to get through. It was also very slippery and the 1.5 hour walk took us over 2 hours! Bonnie had a wonderful time, at only 2ys old she was very happily running back and forth, trying to hurry us up! By the time we got there the soles of our boots were clogged with sticky mud, mine were leaking through the split in my sole so I had muddy sox. We wondered if we would be allowed inside the pub in this state, but we were, this was obviously not an unusual sight for the people here.

We had a good lunch at this oldie-worldie pub, complete with thatch roof, then headed home. But there was no way I was going to try to traverse all that slippery mud again and was very glad when we decided that we would get the bus home. We headed up to the road to find that the buses were few and far between way out here, so we ended up walking all the way home. Surprisingly enough, we found another pub very close to home and, of course, had to stop. Bonnie by now is feeling a bit tired, and so are we.

We found a few more pubs and, of course, had fish and chips more than once! We love the ancientness of the old English towns, the low ceilings in the pubs, the quaint narrow streets. It would be so amazing to be transported back in time to see it 500 years ago. It would be fascinating.

We took Bonnie with us on the bus most days, she was so good. We were surprised how dog friendly it is here. Most shops and cafes/pubs allow dogs, they even have doggie treats on the counters – and Bonnie knows it!

We took the bus to the Isle of Portland and walked out to the end of the peninsular to see the lighthouses. Portland Bill lighthouse is an active lighthouse. She was built early 20^th century and took over from the two lighthouses that had been in use since 1716. Looking over the cliffs you can see the desperate need for safe navigation into Portland and Weymouth harbour. The sheer cliffs and rugged coastline is spectacular, but so dangerous to shipping.

The RNLI has had a lifeboat station here since 1869, and is currently one of the busiest in the country. It was very cool to see the Weymouth Severn Class lifeboat tied up. I was lucky enough to go out on one of her sister ships from the Staithes and Runswick RNLI Station about 15 years ago. It is always interesting for both Chris and I to see these harbour towns and anything to do with maritime search and rescue and boating safety, as we were heavily involved in this back in New Zealand for so long.

But all good things must come to an end and after just 10 days we have to say goodbye. We have loved Weymouth, we are very much looking forward to returning one day.

Thank you for reading our story!!